Blog has moved!

Hey hey!!!

This blog has been moved to here: 

http://therollingadventures.wordpress.com/

HUGE THANKS!!!

Balloon Bed - What a great idea!!

Headed out for a 3hr MTB bikepacking trip on Saturday night and set up camp on the "Yalmy" Road. Al had this fantastic idea of purchasing a super light weight sleeping mat that involves blowing up balloons and inserted them in to the mat.

Key Tip: Don't blow the balloons up 1m away from the fire where embers will hit the balloon and pop them.
His sleeping mat ended up being half the width of this body. Put a tin of spaghetti in the fire to eat for dinner and tucked ourselves into our bivvys.

Stargazing was amazing, such a clear night we saw a few shooting stars. Totally mesmerizing. 
The temperature dropped considerable, enough to put my bivvy over my head. Bad idea, woke up a few times being suffocated by the bivvy. Decided I'd rather my face freeze off than have that suffocated feeling again. Finally got to sleep.

At 3 in the morning Al woke me to ask "How's you mat?" My response "Reckon it's OK considering IM ASLEEP!!!!" His 3 balloon mat was not, so we packed up and headed back home in the freezing cold.
Something peaceful and calming about riding at that time of the day, love it. Decided we still wanted an adventure instead of a soft bed, so lit a fire in the backyard and rolled out the swag until the sun rose. Off for another ride, and finished at the coffee shop.

Lets hope this weekend's GDT goes a bit better!!!

Micro-adventures!

I recently discovered this really cool website www.alastairhumphreys.com it's about adventuring. At times I feel like I want to quit my job and ride my bike around the world and go on crazy adventures. Reading the Micro-adventures makes me sit back and go, its ok to work a proper job and have routine, you can do cool stuff during the week and on weekends, you don't need to chuck it all in. So I thought I'd blog on some of the "Micro-adventures" we have been up to recently:


Last weekend was the Marlo Unofficial Adventure Race - an estuary paddle, MTB ride, Kayak, run. Al and I opted to do the ride leg, joining the 7 others who were going solo. We tried to navigate our way out of the hot bush whilst they others kayaked. We got hopelessly lost, cramped, massively dehydrated, hungry and running on zero energy both of us got so dizzy and disorientated. On a ride like that I would normally require 5 drink bottles-I had 2, and 280g of carbs - I had 55. We finally found our way home and cursed ourselves for such a mistake. 

Photo: Andrew Barnes

The next day we met up with a few friends and rode to Bruthen via the rail trail, an 85k scenic MTB ride which ended with a delicious beer and pizza at the Bullant Brewery. One of our friends who shall remain nameless, had never ridden a MTB before. She was on a very old, very heavy, very rusted Apollo. The thing weighed more than her and refused to budge out of the lower gears. Coming down one steep corner she found herself under the bike, gracious in her fall she wrapped up her bloody knee in a hanky and soldiered on. A mere 20 minutes later as we rode side by side chatting away she found herself riding head on into a massive ball of rusted fence wire that lay in the middle of the track. She did remarkably well to steer the locked up bike to a stop without flipping over the bars which was the scenario I had envisioned just as her and bike were gobbled up by the wire.

During the week we headed out on some night rides and played around with our camera, think we need some more practice though!!

I also got up early and saw some sunrises during the week:

                                                                                 

  







As I type this blog, Al is mapping out our bike packing trip for tonight and tomorrow, we are finalising our gear list for GDT and I am madly trying to learn how to use my garmin dakota and rev myself to sleep in a bivvy!!

Here are some video clips I am using as inspiration:
http://www.alastairhumphreys.com/microadventures-3/24-hour-bivvy-challenge/
http://www.alastairhumphreys.com/microadventures-3/year-microadventure/

As much as I am embracing and loving the idea of Micro-adventuring, I am also itching for a big adventure such as this: 
http://vimeo.com/54172856

Places I want to ride my bike:
- Silk Trail
- Annapurna Circuit Nepal
- Laos and Vietnam
- Tour Divide
- Colorado Trail Race
- Africa
I really hope I can do it all one day! Just gotta make it happen, but in the mean time I'm having a blast doing some micro-adventures!! And some last words:

"Man sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.” Dalai Lama